Cut!
by Threni
Summary: Nearly everyone knows about one particular moment between Hiccup and Astrid in the episode 'Blindsided.' What most people don't know is how hard it was to get that sequence filmed, as this behind-the-scenes story reveals for the very first time...
1. Chapter 1

**Cut!**

 **I Own Nothing**

 **All Rights Reserved**

 **Chapter 1**

Astrid felt Hiccup gently put his hand on hers. She strained her eyes trying to see him again, but in vain.

"Astrid, you and I have been through everything together. You don't think we can't handle this? Astrid you have me no matter what. Okay, whatever that means, whatever you want it to mean, I am with you always. There will always be a—"

"Augh!" Astrid screamed. Her fists flew her to eyes and her face was a picture of pure agony.

"Cut!" Director T.J. Sullivan leapt out of his chair, "Astrid, what's the matter?"

"It's these stupid contacts!" she shouted, "They hurt my eyes and I can't see a thing!"

"Well you're supposed to be blind!" Hiccup loudly pointed out, "that's kinda the point!"

Sullivan sighed through his megaphone, "Well I'm sorry, Astrid, but the sooner we get this scene shot the sooner you can take those contacts out, so let's take it from the top, all right? Ready?" With airs of resignation, the actors resumed their positions on the set, the film crew readjusted the cameras, and the trainers repositioned the dragons and hurriedly darted off the set. "And…action!"

As the cameras began rolling, Hiccup spoke. "Okay, let's mount up and get back to the edge before that thing comes—"

At that moment Toothless suddenly started chasing his tail, destroying the mood of the scene and nearly hitting Hiccup in the head.

"Cut!" Sullivan shouted as the trainers rushed onto the set to calm the dragon down. "What's gotten into him? Is he sick?"

"Oh, he's just getting bored. He wants something to do."

"Well he'll get something to do once we start shooting the fight scene, but first we've gotta get this scene shot!"

"I know that, but you can't explain that to an animal and expect them to understand!" the trainer yelled as she struggled to restrain Toothless.

"Here, how about you take him for a walk around the studio; see if that'll calm him down. We don't really need him for these particular shots. Just come back in 10 minutes, all right?"

"Sure thing, T.J. Come on, Toothless, do you wanna get some fresh air?" she spoke as if talking to a dog.

"All right," Sullivan said, "Let's get these done so when they come back we can move onto shots that'll keep Toothless occupied. Ready? And…action!"

But they had not spoken a single line when loud shouts were heard from off the set, prompting Sullivan to shout "Cut!" again. "What's going on over there? We're on a tight schedule here and we don't—oh good grief, Ruff, Tuff, what have I told you about fighting off camera?"

"He started it," Ruffnut swore.

"You &^%*%# cow, you started it!" Tuffnut shouted back.

"Didn't!"

"Did!"

"Didn't!"

"Didn't start _what_?" demanded the Director.

"He said William Dorrit's death occurred in Installment 17, when any fool knows it was in Installment _16_! I could prove him wrong in an instant if I had my copy of _Little Dorrit_ with me!"

"No you couldn't!"

"You guys are fighting over when a guy dies in a Charles Dickens novel?" The Director said incredulously.

"I thought everyone died in Dickens novels," Astrid remarked from the set.

"Nope! Hey Astrid, do you think Lucie Darnay is the worst Dickensian heroine? I sure think so. She's called an angel too many times and she's as bland as a brick!"

"Well I think she's one of the best!" Tuffnut interrupted his sister, "And _A Tale of Two Cities_ is a great book!"

"I hate it," Ruffnut growled, "Dickens messed up everywhere with that one,"

"Did not!"

"Did too!"

"Oooh, you think you're so smart and clever, huh? Your very throat is moral, eh, Miss Pecksniff? Always affable and not a bit of pride? Hah!" Nobody but Ruffnut understood a thing he was talking about.

"Well _you_ don't know the first thing about Tittlebats!" Nobody but Tuffnut understood a thing she was talking about.

"Neither do you, you pompous little geek!"

"That's not a Dickensian insult!"

"That's because it's a Tuffnutian insult!"

"Oh, there are those things now?"

"Will you two cut it out?" shouted Sullivan.

"Yeah, guys, we're trying to shoot this scene!" Hiccup yelled from the set, where he had been tapping his foot impatiently.

"I want to take these stupid contacts out!" Astrid moaned, "couldn't we just CGI my eyes to look blind?"

"We don't have the budget," Sullivan said glumly, "management likes to cut costs any way they can,"

"What?" Astrid exclaimed, "We're a big series and they want it done _cheaply_?"

"I know, Astrid, I know, I've tried to talk with them a million times, I've told them 'you get what you pay for' and the like, but they won't give me anything and tell me I'm lucky to have what I get,"

"Ooh! Just like the Workhouse Board did to Oliver Twist!" Tuffnut said excitedly.

"And because we're on a tight budget, we've got to get these scenes shot fast! So, let's get on with it!" Sullivan resumed the director's chair. "All right, quiet on the set! Hiccup, Astrid, you two ready? Right…and…action!"

Hiccup took Astrid by the shoulders. "Look, obviously I can't even imagine what this...I can't even imagine what my line is, I am so sorry!"

"Cut!"

"I'm sorry, T.J., I'm sorry, can I just see the script again?" Hiccup said, trying not to look embarrassed, "all right—'I can't even imagine what this must be like for you, you're, well, you're Astrid, you're strong and invincible'—right, I've got it, let's do this,"

"At least you can actually _see_ the script," Astrid muttered, "I can barely see you and you're right in front of me!"

The Director called for action again. Hiccup flubbed his lines again. They tried a third time and he still messed up. So Sullivan told someone to prepare some cue-cards for him.

"I heard this worked for Marlon Brando all the time,"

Astrid snorted, "Right, because you're the next Marlon Brando!"

"Hey! I'm a pretty good actor!"

"Nicholas Nickleby was a good actor too!" Ruffnut said dreamily. "And he had such a way with words…"

Sullivan shouted into his megaphone, "All right, let's try this again. And…action!"

"Look, obviously I can't even imagine what this must be like for you. You're, well, you're Astrid. And I'm gonna make you an offer you can't refuse,"

"CUT! Hiccup!"

"Sorry, I couldn't resist!" he laughed.

"It was an offer _he_ couldn't refuse." Astrid sniggered.

"Would you two please—?"

"All right, T.J., all right, we'll be seriously this time." Hiccup said soothingly. They started again. His eyes moved to the cue-cards infrequently. "Look, obviously I can't even imagine what this must be like for you. You're, well, you're Astrid. You've got the hottest body in the whole—wait a minute!"

"CUT!" Sullivan screamed.

"That wasn't my fault!" Hiccup yelled at once, "I was just reading the cue-card!"

"Who wrote that cue-card? Snotlout, have you been pulling pranks again?"

Snotlout Jorgenson, who was standing off camera, was howling with laughter. "Did you like that, Astrid?"

"When I can actually see you again I'm going to kill you!" she roared. She was not mad about what the cue-card had read; she was mad because it meant another delay which meant she had to keep those irritating contacts in longer.


	2. Chapter 2

**I Own Nothing**

 **All Rights Reserved**

 **I'm very glad people found this funny and said so in their reviews, but I have one little question: who said the story was done?**

 **Chapter 2**

They broke for lunch with the scene still only about half shot. Sullivan hoped and prayed that when all the clips were put together in the editing room they would end up with enough footage. It had been a rough morning all the same, and he was not at all pleased to see Alvin the Treacherous standing in his office doorway.

Sullivan groaned. "Oh what now, Alvin?"

Alvin grinned slyly, "Well, you know, T.J., you've got a pretty nice studio here…"

"And it would be a shame if something bad was to 'happen' to it, yes, you've been making threats like that ever since we first hired you!" Sullivan said in exasperation as he threw himself into a chair.

Alvin flung himself at Sullivan's feet. "Oh please, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Amazing Director Man, please bring back my character and give me a part! I'll do anything! Dye my hair, change my costume and use me as a background extra! I need a part! Do you realize that if I don't get a starring role soon I'll have no career in film? I'll have to actually GET A JOB!" he started bawling at the top of his lungs.

Sullivan rolled his eyes. "Oh, you think filmmaking _isn't_ a job?"

"It's not fair, T.J.! I'm Hiccup's arch enemy in the books, but you guys only gave me two seasons!"

"And since when have we been faithful to the books?" laughed the Director, "if we followed those, Toothless would be a scrawny little pipsqueak and Astrid wouldn't even exist!"

"Well you could still bring me back! Or like I said, slip me into the background somewhere!"

"Sorry, Al, but this episode only features the Dragon Riders and we've already completed casting for the rest of the season. Unless someone calls in sick—and Alvin, if anyone does miss the day of the shoot because of you, I will _not_ hire you! I recognize that look of yours!"

"Curses," Alvin muttered.

"And anyway, even if we did have opened positions, Dreamworks made it very clear they won't meet your salary demands!"

"What? Not even if I'll agree not to demand a Jacuzzi?"

"Nope."

"Or the new car?"

"You'd only reduce your demanded salary by 1/3 if you did that. We can't even afford to use CGI on Astrid's eyes!"

"Well what am I gonna do?" Alvin yelled.

"I hear they're auditioning extras for the next Star Wars movie." Sullivan said after a moment's thought.

Alvin was delighted. "Really? You mean it? Gosh, I've always wanted to be in Star Wars! I could play a bounty hunter or a Sith Lord! Thanks T.J.!" and he rushed out the door and made for the parking lot.

Sullivan sighed. "If only all my troubles could be solved so easily." He then realized the talk with Alvin had taken up most of his lunch break. He stuffed a sandwich into his mouth as he hurried back to the set.

"Mmph…right, Aftrid and Thickup—" he swallowed, "Excuse me. All right, Astrid and Hiccup, are we ready now?"

"Yes!" they said in unison.

"Right…and…action!"

Hiccup took Astrid's hand. "Look, obviously—"

"Obviously you ate something garlicky for lunch!" she exclaimed as she pulled away from him, covering her nose.

"Cut!" Sullivan said wearily, "What's wrong now?"

"His breath stinks! Hold on a minute." She pulled from a pocket a container of Altoids and handed one to Hiccup. "It should be a law in these parts that actors can't have stinky breath."

Hiccup obliged her by eating the Altoid. "Sorry, Astrid. Sorry, T.J." he breathed experimentally, "Better now?"

"Much," she said approvingly.

"All right, let's get to it…and…wait a minute!" Sullivan's phone had started ringing. "This had better be good—oh great, it's from the Dreamworks Executives! Hello?"

"Hey, T.J, is now a good time?"

"Well…"

"Excellent. Look, we've just gone through the numbers and found the new Dreamworks Dragon season is starting to go over budget and fall behind schedule, so we really need you to finish shooting as quickly as possible. All right? Splendid. Goodbye."

Sullivan put his phone away numbly.

"They interrupted shooting to tell us to hurry it up?" Hiccup exclaimed.

"Well let's not keep them waiting any longer!" Sullivan said, "Places and let's shoot this—and please, Lord, have mercy on us in this time of difficulty," he looked upwards.

Shooting resumed and this time Hiccup made it past the first two lines. That was an improvement already. Sullivan watched, noting to himself with satisfaction that Hiccup was speaking just with the right tone; he was trying to be reassuring yet uncertain, and his face nicely inched bit by bit closer to Astrid's. The viewers were going to love the buildup. And Astrid reacted perfectly to his words, correctly conveying the expression of a woman in a stressful situation who so badly wanted to believe the words of comfort she was hearing. Yes, this was going excellently.

"…I am with you." Hiccup said, "There will always be a—"

And at that moment the boom microphone fell on Astrid's head.

Chaos ensured. Astrid fell on the floor in a daze, Hiccup tried to help her, people were screaming, the physician ran onto the set to examine her, the microphone man was apologizing loudly for his mistake while also complaining that his arms had gotten tired after all the retakes. And after screaming "Cut!" poor T.J. Sullivan was clenching his hair and trying not to burst into tears.


	3. Chapter 3

**I Own Nothing**

 **All Rights Reserved**

 **Chapter 3**

"Action." Sullivan said wearily. It was late afternoon, about the time when most actors went home for the night. They were still shooting the same scene. After Astrid had gotten clobbered it had taken over an hour to calm things down and make certain she was able to continue. And then they had discovered someone had left a camera rolling. It had overheated and used up all its film space, and they had lost another half hour trying to get it functioning again. They had just successfully completed a take only to discover one camera had the wrong lens in it.

Thankfully by this point nobody was having trouble remembering their lines. Hiccup claimed he could type his lines verbatim while asleep and nobody doubted it. So he recited the words again, went through the motions, and…

"Cut." Sullivan said wearily, "Hiccup, c'mon, you're not acting."

Hiccup sighed in annoyance. "I'm tired, all right? We've been doing this all day! I'm getting sick of saying the same stuff over and over and over again!"

"I'm tired too, but we need to get this done. You're not emoting the way you should here and you know it. So, from the top…action,"

Hiccup put more effort into his acting and got through the scene just fine. Then, just as he was finishing his lines he took a step closer.

"Hiccup?" Astrid whispered.

"Yes, Astrid?" he whispered back.

"You're standing on my foot."

Hiccup waited for Sullivan to call "cut" but nothing happened, so he looked awkwardly at the ground. "Oh, sorry,"

Astrid suddenly jerked her head. "Did you hear that?"

"Um…hear what?"

"Cut," Sullivan called. "Well guys, that wasn't in the script, but good ad-libbing!"

"He really did step on me." Astrid groaned, massaging her foot as best as she could. "I just figured rather than ruin the take we could do something comical with it."

Sullivan nodded and decided they had filmed enough for one scene. "I'm going to go through the footage to make sure everything in the script is covered. Everyone stand by in case we need to do any more retakes."

It was around 7 o'clock in the evening. They were still waiting for the director to finish reviewing the footage. There was a lot of footage to go through, so Astrid had gone out and grabbed a large cup of coffee. She returned to the set and joined Hiccup. He was in a chair reading a script and muttering under his breath.

"Still trying to memorize your lines?" she teased.

"Not for this show." He replied without looking up, "A local Shakespeare Company is doing the Henry VI Histories this summer. I'm playing the future Richard III." He gestured to his metal leg, "With a slight adjustment I'll have a genuine limp."

"Well I hope you make sure your breath doesn't stink this time,"

"Actually, that might help my character! I'll make my breath so repulsive people won't even like getting near me! After all: I can add colors to the chameleon/change shape with Proteus for advantages/and send the murderous Machiavel to school/Can I do this and cannot get a crown?"

"Well Babe, try to kiss me with garlic breath again and you'll have to get crowns for your teeth."

"I sometimes wonder why I'm attracted to you. You're always so violent."

"It's communication. I'm simply informing you that I don't like you having smelly breath and you should take care to avoid it or suffer the consequences," she said sweetly.

He put the script away. "So what about you? Got any major roles coming up?"

She sat down and sipped her drink. "Oh, I'm doing stunt work in superhero movies again. I forget which ones; I lost track a long time ago. That kind of work doesn't win me any Oscars but it helps pay the bills and put food on the table,"

To pass the time they began practicing their upcoming scenes, in the hope that they could avoid more days like this one. As they were doing so their friend Fishlegs Ingerman came over. He had been scheduled to shoot some scenes that afternoon, but those had ended up being postponed until tomorrow, so he had been wandering around the studio lot.

"I just passed the editing room," he announced, "T.J. looks pleased."

"Well that's a good sign," Astrid said hopefully.

"No kidding. Oh and Astrid, Snotlout wants to know if you want to join him at the bar tonight. The usual answer?"

She scowled. "Do you even need to ask?"

"I'll take that to mean the usual answer."

"Where is Snotlout anyway?" Hiccup asked.

"Do you even need to ask? He's glued to his computer."

Astrid scowled. "I suppose he's looking up smutty Fanfiction again?"

Hiccup shook his head. "He told me he's quit reading Fanfictions. He needed counseling because those stories portray him so negatively they hurt his self-esteem."

Astrid smiled smugly. Fishlegs laughed. "Well that at least is mostly accurate. Not like others I know about. And Hiccup, I've heard some stories feature you as a girl!"

Astrid nearly gagged on her coffee. Hiccup raised his eyebrows. Then he shrugged. "Well it's obviously not true, but people write what they want."

"You don't find it a little weird?"

He shrugged again. "We're part of a series about Scottish sounding Vikings who fly on Dragons, cheat death a few hundred times, and possess some super-powerful and knowledgeable telescope that only works when a dragon breathes on it. How is any of this normal? And in any case, I don't think art and creativity should be restrained. Imagination needs freedom. Artists shouldn't let their minds sit like stagnant ponds collecting skuzzy algae and mosquito eggs."

"Why Hiccup, you're a philosopher," Astrid teased.

He smiled. "Maybe I am."

She suddenly yawned. "Do you think T.J. is done yet? I wanna go home."

Fishlegs announced he was going to pay another visit to the editing room. One of the editors was a friend of his. Not long after he left T.J. came to the set looking happier than he had been all day. "Well everyone, that scene is finished! That's a wrap for the day." Everyone cheered. "But remember we've got a full day of shooting tomorrow!" Everybody groaned.

Although the shooting itself was done, the day's work was far from over. Equipment had to be properly put away, costumes had to be tended to, make-up removed, props accounted for, sets had to be refurbished and arranged for upcoming scenes, and plenty of other things had to be done. Some of the crew knew they would not get home until around midnight, and would have to be back in the studio around 5 in the morning.

Hiccup stepped out of the dressing room with a yawn.

"And I'll bet tomorrow is gonna be a long day too." Astrid said as she came over and helped him put his greatcoat on.

"Probably. You wanna get some dinner?"

She smiled mischievously "Heads you pay, tails I don't,"

"As you wish, Milady,"

"You know, onscreen relationships usually don't work out in real life,"

Hiccup kissed her on the cheek. They stepped out into the parking lot. Night was falling, the sky was a cobalt blue, and Venus shone as brightly as ever. "There are always exceptions to the rule, and you're pretty exceptional. Oh and if I'm paying tonight I decide where we're eating,"

She playfully punched him on the arm.

In his office, Sullivan scanned through the portion of the script they would film tomorrow. With minimal mishaps they could probably complete the rest of the episode if they worked late. Of course, after such a day as this he could not expect shooting to go on without any mishaps. Still, at least they had finally gotten through the scene. A scene that took up less than five minutes of screen time, and ought to have been shot in less than 5 takes.

He suddenly became aware of people shouting, and saw one of the editors dragging a terrified Fishlegs towards his office.

"What's going on?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it!" Fishlegs screamed.

Sullivan felt his heart go into his liver. "Do what?"

"I'll tell you 'what'!" yelled the editor, "We were starting to process the rushes and he came in and exposed all the footage!"

"I didn't mean to!"

Sullivan felt his heart go into his shoes. "You mean—"

"All the footage we shot today was ruined!"

"So the scene—the _nightmare_ we've been trying to film all day—it has to be _redone_?"

The editor nodded helplessly.

"I swear, I didn't mean to, T.J.! I didn't know what they were doing, I swear I didn't!" Fishlegs shrieked.

Sullivan took a very deep breath. "Will you please go tell the carpenters to build a gallows?" He grabbed his chair and threw it at them. "BECAUSE I'M GONNA HANG FISHLEGS FROM IT!"

Fishlegs broke free and ran for it. Sullivan roared, flung the script at the window, and then grabbed the editor by the neck and broke down sobbing on his shoulder.

There truly was no business like show business.

 **The End**


End file.
